


A Gift For Her Heart

by Dancingsalome



Category: Ivanhoe - All Media Types
Genre: Character Turned Into a Ghost, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-10
Updated: 2018-02-10
Packaged: 2019-03-16 07:18:06
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 606
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13631373
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Dancingsalome/pseuds/Dancingsalome
Summary: Years after Rebecca left England, she receives a gift.





	A Gift For Her Heart

**Author's Note:**

  * For [alamorn](https://archiveofourown.org/users/alamorn/gifts).



> Dear alamorn, I hope you enjoy this treat.

Rebecca had given up her fine clothes and jewellry without regrets when she went to Spain. She turned to her new life with joy. The work was hard, but she found in it happiness, which laid almost all of her old life to rest. If there was a secret compartment of her heart where Ivanhoe still lived, Rebecca rarely allowed herself to look inside. And there was no one else there, or so she told herself with such alacrity she believed it.

But the books, oh how she missed the books. They were not forbidden for her, and her father sent some from time to time. Rebecca read them, pacing herself from reading them too greedily, and then she gave them up. She longed to keep them, to create a library for herself, but books were valuable. Better to sell them to bring in money to help and heal. Still, each time she unwrapped a package from her father, her heart beat a little faster in anticipation of what she would soon hold in her hands.

The books Rebecca unpacked in the early afternoon, five years after she had left England, at first only gave her the usual thrill. Two beautiful volumes, and a third, smaller one. For some reason she picked up the last one, though its leather binding was worn, and the pages without gold work or colourful pictures. But the vellum was smooth as silk under her hands, and the initials beautifully rendered with accents of red ink. The book fell open in her hands, and she read the first strophes of a love poem.

_Already rejoicing, I begin to love,  
For I am made better by one who is, beyond dispute  
The best a man ever saw or heard._

Rebecca stopped reading. There was something in those lines, and with trembling hands she went back to the first page of the book, empty apart from a name cipher she had not seen in many years. It couldn’t be. How could a book which had been in England, or at least France, travel to Spain, so many years later. And in all of Spain, how had it had found her? Her father couldn’t have noticed, he would never had sent her a book which had belonged to Bois-Guilbert. So how could it be possible?

But he had promised her books.

A light breeze went through the room, and Rebecca looked up. And there he was, standing in front of her, looking as solid as if he was there in the flesh. His proud stance, and haughty face, with eyes filled with so much hunger and longing, her heart constricted with pity.

She thought he would speak, but then his eyes shifted to the book she held in her hand, and a vision filled her mind. In it she was sitting in front of a roaring fire, and seated beside her was Bois-Guilbert, his face at once softer and filled with love as he watched her. He was holding the book in his hands, and now Rebecca could hear his voice, deep and rich, reciting the poem, and though she had only read the first few words, he read it to the end.

Then the vision of what could have been ended, but the ghost was still standing there, his eyes now silently imploring her. Rebecca understood, and she pressed the book to her heart, and whispered; “Thank you.”

And he was gone. He had promised her books once, now he had brought her one. Rebecca carefully put it into a chest. The other books would be sold, but this one she would keep.

**Author's Note:**

> The bit of poetry was written by Guilhem IX Count of Poitiers and Duke of Aquitaine.


End file.
